Snowboarding Crow

Here's your nightly math! Just 5 quick minutes of number fun for kids and parents at home. Read a cool fun fact, followed by math riddles at different levels so everyone can jump in. Your kids will love you for it.

Snowboarding Crow

We have lots of ways to slide at top speed on snow: sledding, skiing, snowboarding. We people aren’t the only ones who think it’s fun, though — birds love it, too. In this video, a crow who’s found a round jar lid slides down a snowy roof while hanging onto it. That first trip might have been an accident, but then the crow grabs the lid, flies to the top of the roof and tries it again. That had to be on purpose! The crow tests out a dry part of the roof, but goes back to the first slope to keep “crowboarding.” Birds love their winter sports just like us.

Wee ones: The snow on the roof is white. Try to spot 4 white things in your room.

Little kids: If the crow’s ride starts 3 seconds into the video and lasts for 5 seconds, how many seconds into the video does the ride end? Bonus: If the crow slides down the left side of the roof, then the right, then the left, then the right…out of 8 rides, how many will be on the left?

Big kids: If the crow starts the ride 9 feet from the edge of the roof and finishes 4 feet from the edge, how many inches did the crow slide? (Reminder if needed: One foot equals 12 inches.) Bonus: If a woodpecker, robin and peacock all join in the fun, and a pair of birds ride the lid together, how many possible pairs could it be? (Don’t worry about the order, just the pairs of birds.)

Big kids: 60 inches, since it’s 5 feet of sliding. Bonus: 6 pairs. The crow can pair with the woodpecker (W), robin (R), or peacock (P): CW, CR, CP. Then W can also pair with the robin or peacock, because we already tried CW. That gives us WR and WP. Finally, the robin has only the peacock left as a partner, giving us 3+2+1 = 6 pairs.

About the Author

Laura Bilodeau Overdeck is founder and president of Bedtime Math Foundation. Her goal is to make math as playful for kids as it was for her when she was a child. Her mom had Laura baking while still in diapers, and her dad had her using power tools at a very unsafe age, measuring lengths, widths and angles in the process. Armed with this early love of numbers, Laura went on to get a BA in astrophysics from Princeton University, and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business; she continues to star-gaze today. Laura’s other interests include her three lively children, chocolate, extreme vehicles, and Lego Mindstorms.